Bad news for Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and idiot Republican candidates on the campaign trail who have nothing better to talk about: They'll no longer be able to scare listeners with the prospect of Democrats reviving the Fairness Doctrine! Because FCC chair Julius Genachowski has agreed to take the dated, unenforced rule out of its books, once and for all.

The Fairness Doctrine, adopted in 1949, allowed the FCC to establish criteria ensuring media coverage of important issues was, well, fair and balanced, and giving equal representation to both sides. This may have been vital back in the days when there were only like three national media outlets, total, but it wouldn't work in today's decentralized media environment, and it's gone unenforced since 1987.

It's true that once every other year or so, a single Democrat will get terribly annoyed with Fox News and chirp up about maybe reviving some updated version of the Fairness Doctrine. The Democratic party and President Obama, however, have ruled that out. Still, Republicans lie all the time about how this is exactly what Obama wants to do — SILENCE CONSERVATIVES! — because it sounds nice in stump speeches.

So will this circle of old, unenforced laws and lies about nothing now be coming to an end? The Hill reports:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said his agency will remove the Fairness Doctrine from the rule books in response to a recent request from House Republicans.

"I fully support deleting the Fairness Doctrine and related provisions from the Code of Federal Regulations, so that there can be no mistake that what has been a dead letter is truly dead," Genachowski wrote in a letter Monday to House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

No word yet on whether President Obama will release grisly death photos of the Fairness Doctrine.